Christmas is in the air…

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As we just celebrated Thanksgiving, and begin to conclude this year with the Christmas season we are reminded more than ever of the many things to be thankful for. I am thankful for my education, my experiences of the past, my family, my friends in Guatemala, my work, my students, my church, and my supporters of my ministry. All of this has made me who I am today and has brought me to Zacapa to work as a missionary.

MOST eyeglass team
Like I previously stated, a team from MOST ministries was sent to Zacapa starting the week of Oct. 31st to host an eyeglass clinic. If you are not familiar with MOST ministries, they are a Lutheran short-term mission sending organization based out of Michigan that send groups all over the world to share the love of Jesus through various methods. On this trip they hosted an eye clinic at the Lutheran School in Zacapa where they did general eye checkups and gave eyeglasses and sunglasses to people that need them. I assisted that week at the clinic in translating at various stations, and got to meet many people from Zacapa that attended, as well as the team members from the states. One of the members of the team was Pastor Walt Schoenfuhs. Here is a crazy connection for you: Pastor Walt was the pastor of my mother’s church back in the 1980’s, and married my parents! And here he is in Zacapa taking a picture with me! It was great to connect with him as well as several of the team members.

What’s coming up this month?
Now into the month December, Christmas music can be heard in my classroom. This month I gained two new students, one on guitar and one on saxophone. Both students are using instruments donated by generous supporters of my ministry. Thank you! Pictured below is the first saxophone lesson.

With my more advanced students we continue to work on preparing them to play on Sundays, and now I have a larger selection of students to choose from so we have a nice rotation from week to week. Hopefully we can work up something special amongst the musicians for Christmas Eve.

New missionaries!
The theme of Global Lutheran Outreach is to send missionaries “from anywhere to anywhere!”. And that is exactly what they are doing. The newest missionary family that is preparing to go to the mission field is Victor, Belen, and Sophia Rivas. Victor and Belen are a young couple with a 4 yr old daughter from Guatemala that are in the support raising phase before they can serve in the South American country of Guyana. Victor, with a background in education and a gift of working with youth, and Belen, as a musician and Sunday School teacher, this couple is well equipped to reach lost souls in Guyana. Pray for them, and look them up on the GLO website or Facebook page to learn more and follow their latest post, and consider supporting them as well as they begin this journey. They will be the first Guatemalan Lutheran missionaries to serve abroad.